 | | Soldiers jog every day to keep their body fit in their tour of duty but have to endure the dust around the base |
Even to a physician like U.S. Army Capt. D.J. Doyle, the list of diseases in Afghanistan is frightening: typhoid fever, dengue fever, polio, cholera, leishmaniasis, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. And then there's the dust. "I go running every day. The first time I saw the dust in the air, I thought 'Oh my God, I'm going to get so sick,'" said Doyle, 38, acting surgeon for the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan. "But it just hasn't happened." The threat of disease and ailments hangs over any military force entering a foreign environment. In a country like Afghanistan, where sanitation and Western hygiene standards are virtually nonexistent and soldiers interact with the populace regularly, the prospect is even more unnerving. "For a U.S.-trained physician and soldier, the idea of going to a place where something like hemorrhagic fever is endemic scares the hell out of me," Doyle said. U.S. medical planners' fears of illness were based on past experience. In Vietnam, malaria sapped many troops' strength. Concerns were also stoked by the experience of the Soviet army during its war and occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. An estimated two-thirds of all Soviet troops who fought in Afghanistan were hospitalized with some disease or illness. Hepatitis A, typhoid fever, malaria, dysentery and even plague were the primary diseases that afflicted the Soviets. "It's not unrealistic to say the Soviets lost the war here because of disease non-battle injuries," Doyle said. For U.S. military troops, disease non-battle injury rates have run at about 1 percent since U.S operations began in Afghanistan last November. Most problems have been respiratory, which is attributed to the high altitudes and the dusty environment. Because many diseases in Afghanistan are also water- or food-borne, efforts also focus on basic hygiene. Combat troops out in the field are given bottles of anti-bacterial hand lotion and warned to stay away from locally-grown produce. But all these things are not enough. "The bottom line is that war is not a healthy thing." Doyle said. (Agencies) | 傷寒病、登革熱、小兒麻痹癥、霍亂、黑熱病、克里米亞-剛果出血熱…… 連美軍上尉軍醫D.J都勒對阿富汗境內的種種疾病都感到心驚膽戰。 除此以外，還有更大的隱患--塵土。 38歲的都勒是美軍駐阿第82空降師的代理外科醫生。他說："我每天都要跑步鍛煉身體。當我第一次看到空氣中的大量塵土時就想，上帝啊，我會得病的。還好現在我還沒有病倒。" 對于任何一個進入別國境內作戰的軍隊來說，疾病隨時都有可能降臨。而像在阿富汗這樣一個國家，衛生設施或西方衛生標準根本不存在，士兵還要跟當地平民頻繁接觸，沾染傳染疾病的可能性就更大了。  | | 阿富汗戰場上的美國大兵在吃空投的快餐 |
都勒說："盡管身為一名訓練有素的美國軍醫，只要想到我們要去的地方蔓延著出血熱等疾病，我還是害怕得夠嗆。"
美國醫療規劃者們對疾病的擔心是有據可循的。在越戰期間，瘧疾拖垮了許多士兵。而在二十世紀八十年代蘇聯對阿富汗的戰爭中，阿富汗當地的傳染病也是造成蘇軍受挫的一個重大原因。 據統計，在阿富汗作戰的蘇軍士兵有三分之二染上了疾病。甲肝、傷寒、瘧疾、痢疾甚至瘟疫是折磨蘇軍的主要疾病。 都勒說："不夸張地說，是沒有硝煙的病痛讓蘇軍打了敗仗。" 自從去年11月美軍在阿富汗地區展開軍事行動至今，美軍士兵的染病率在1%左右。其中大部分是由于當地的高海拔和塵土環境導致的呼吸系統疾病。 在阿富汗，有許多疾病是通過水或食物傳播的，因此美軍的主要措施就是改善基礎衛生條件。部隊為在外作戰的士兵提供瓶裝抗菌水、洗手液，并警告他們離當地食品遠一點。 但所有的這些措施都是不夠的。都勒無奈地說："歸根結蒂，戰爭本來就不是健康的。" scares the hell out of me： 把我嚇了一大跳
bottom line: 底線 （中國日報網站譯） |
Updated: 2002-12-06 01:00
